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Two Steps Back; Fifty-Six Weeks In

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My older son gets terrible hay fever – May is the worst month for him – and although I’m hopeful that his outdoor-mask-wearing habit will help, I am fully stocked up on the allergy medications that, over the years, we have found to work for him: daily doses of Reactine, plus the Walmart store brand allergy sinus pills when needed.

Until last week, I had set foot in Walmart exactly once during the pandemic, and that was back in August to purchase school supplies. I did manage to get the last bottle of the pills in question:

My husband asked me to pick him up a bottle of nighttime Advil while I was there and, well.

So we are in the “third wave” of the pandemic, and it’s hard not to feel despairing about it. We were doing so well! And now we aren’t. We are back into mini-lockdown mode, and for those of us who have been stringently Following The Rules throughout, and then some, it is Very Frustrating.

I have created my own Coping Mechanisms, apart from the all-important one of severely limiting my time on my phone, looking at news and social media; I can tell when I’ve been scrolling too much, I get fidgety and anxious and snappy and have difficulty focusing on anything. Other than putting my phone away, I have found that for my mental health, I have been doing a lot of the following: reading, playing piano, and exercise. I already tell you what I read every week, there’s not much to say about playing piano except that I like it, and so today I am going to talk about exercise.

I realize that the subject, at the best of times, can be fraught; if you are a person for whom this is true, or if you just think the subject is unbearably dull, skip ahead to this week’s outfit – new bum warmer! – or to the reading list, as there are a couple of good titles this week.

I think the key to maintaining a regular exercise program is threefold: choose things you actually enjoy, a time of day that works, and then make it a habit. I find that once I establish a habit it feels wrong to miss, and also according to my watch I am on a 371-day streak, so I can’t break it now. I am, and always have been, a Very Early Morning Person, and so I finish my yoga practice and cardio workouts before 8:00 am every day, later on weekends.

We are all so different, and that is wonderful! I have friends who love to swim, and to do bootcamp or HIIT workouts, and play racquet sports, and practice barre and Pilates, none of which are things I personally want to do. Sure, barre and Pilates intrigue me in a I should really try them kind of way, but let’s face it: my Peloton app has those classes, some are as little as ten minutes long, and I have never once tried one, which is an answer in itself. My daily movement involves yoga, cardio, and walking.

Yoga

I have been practicing yoga since 2007, and it is really more of a mental health boost than a physical one. Don’t get me wrong; yoga is great for strengthening and stretching those muscles and keeping the joints healthy, but the mental benefits cannot be discounted. My daily practice has changed a lot over the years; it’s Ashtanga-based but gentler, it’s slow and stretchy and meditative. On weekends my practice is more yin-based, and a few times a week I sit in meditation for as long as I can, time permitting. With the pandemic, I now have coffee and read a poem or two before I start. I also have been reading a fabulous book that I recommend to everyone called Wake Up To The Joy In You. It is a book of weekly meditations, and when my mind wanders during my yoga practice I bring it back to my breathing and the focus of the meditation for the week.

Welcome to my studio!

Early morning yoga has been my “me-time” since the kids were very small, and it’s still my favourite time, even now. I love practicing in my dark, quiet house before anyone even thinks of waking up. Although, with teens, and me in perimenopause, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they are going to bed when I’m getting up.

Cardio

Where yoga is more for mental health, cardio is definitely more physical; I think it’s so important for heart and lung health. Hopefully I won’t end up like Jim Fix. I LOVE a good sweaty cardio workout – I love that Dripping With Sweat feeling, and also that My Lungs May Explode feeling – and I am fortunate to have a home gym at my disposal.

I feel pretty!

I do cardio six days a week, varying in length and activity to keep things interesting. Now that it’s not a skating rink outside, I am running as well as spinning on my Peloton or using my elliptical trainer. The variety in activity keeps me engaged, and I have some excellent motivational playlists that I use for running or elliptical training – I am a person who is very motivated by music. I find nothing pushes me up a hill like a good blast of Eye of the Tiger or Crazy Train. I am also a person who gets a “runner’s high” after any kind of heart-pumping cardio; you should probably send thoughts and prayers to my family who are subjected to my rapid-fire chatter after cardio at 7:30 in the morning.

Walking

A few years ago, when I injured my hip, one of my seniors said to me “RUNNING? Why would you RUN? What’s wrong with walking quickly? You get to the same place, it just takes a little longer.” I love running but he is absolutely correct. Walking is, in my opinion, a very underrated exercise. Where yoga is more for my mental health and cardio for physical, I think walking is the perfect mix of both. I love being outside, even when the weather is terrible, which, let’s face it, it’s Calgary, the weather is terrible most of the time. Most of my walks are Shmoopy Walks, with my husband, but when he’s not available I put on my headphones and groove to the Hamilton soundtrack, or walk with a friend. The occasional physically distanced walk is my only social life these days, so I treasure them. Plus, there are always lovely places to go, regardless of the season.

Until the pandemic, my walks consisted of short Barkley walks, and so one thing I am grateful for this past year is rediscovering of my love of walking, and not the kind of walking where I stop every twenty feet for Barkley to sniff a shrub for two minutes, and where I have to be on High Alert so he doesn’t eat discarded tissues on the ground.

On that note, what is with all the discarded tissues? My friend Sue in Fredericton (HI SUE) has been picking up discarded disposable masks on her daily walks – more than 600 in a single week – and while I see the occasional mask, it’s not to that extent. However, I see DISCARDED TISSUES everywhere, and I have to be fully alert or Barkley will snap them up and eat them. I will do pretty much anything for my dog but I will not remove someone else’s used tissue from his mouth, be better, people.

Anyway. All of this is to say is that I have rediscovered my love of walking, sans Barkley. (He gets walked too, don’t worry, it’s just not something I include as exercise, due to the slow-boat-to-nowhere pace.)

Outfit of the Week

Speaking of terrible weather! Spring in Calgary is so weird and variable; one day might (MIGHT) be quite pleasant, and the next day snow and gusting wind. I have not been buying clothes this year; it’s not a rule or anything, just a resolution to appreciate my wardrobe, and also, it’s not like I have a bustling life outside of my home. However, I made an exception to buy just one more bum warmer from My Cozy Buns, the local woman who repurposes thrifted sweaters. Look how cute!

It goes with almost everything in my wardrobe! Black! Grey! White! I’ve paired it with yoga tank and leggings – naturally – plus a long sleeve tee. I later put on a sweater because, Calgary In Spring, and I need layers.

Pandemic Reading

What an incredible writer, what a compelling read. This is one of my favourite types of books: related short stories. All these stories are conversations, between women, in different times and places. It was a thought-provoking, unsettling, at times very disturbing read. I liked it but you might not. Themes of rape, power, being a woman are throughout.

In the past few years I’ve become interested in the role of trauma and how it affects our physical bodies. My friend Monique (HI MONIQUE) recommended this to me, about racialized trauma. It is a book intended for healing trauma, using somatics and mindfulness, not just in people with black bodies, but those with white ones and people in law enforcement. It is written with great compassion and wisdom. As a white bodied woman, at times this was a very difficult and uncomfortable read, which makes it all the more important. It promotes healing and understanding for the one and only race – the human race. A vitally important book for all of us.

If you don’t live with wrestling fans, or you are not one yourself, you may not know that this weekend was The Event of the Year, Wrestle Mania. (Me: I thought the Royal Rumble was the Event of the Year. Boys: No, Mom, that is the SECOND biggest Event of the Year. This is the biggest.) This weekend has been looked forward to with great anticipation for MONTHS.

(Thanks to Marion (HI MARION) for sending this, I really feel it.)

What I’m trying to say is that if you have a house full of very loud chaos – not to MENTION the Masters’ and all the golf updates – then this is a good book for you. It’s fine. It’s a time travel book that has some fun pop culture tidbits from the 80s to today. It’s a book you don’t want to overthink and it isn’t challenging in any way, so good to read while people are yelling “USO! USO! USO!” or “HE’S GOING TO USE THE SWING!” or “Look, Mom, it’s Edge!” You don’t need to concentrate, it’s not a bad book, it’s a light weekend read, and also, the one guy I kind of like in the WWE lost.

Life in the Boyhouse, am I right? Also, this is the reason I am rarely sad when celebrities die; I often think they are already dead. Like Hulk Hogan!

Have a beautiful week, my friends, and it is only 363 days until the NEXT Wrestle Mania, Jesus take the wheel. xo

Magic; Fifty-Five Weeks In

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I have discovered an enormous upside to the physical aging process, other than the “not dying” part of the aging process. Not dying is a pretty big upside, but this new discovery is also huge.

First, some background. Every morning, because I am vain and also a bit masochistic, I examine my face in my Daylight 10x Magnification mirror, tweezers in hand. I pluck my eyebrows and also stray hairs from other parts of my face, notably the chin and upper lip. Hormones, am I right, ladies? If you know, you know. I feel like this daily ritual keeps me from becoming the Bearded Lady, not that there is anything wrong with that, but it’s not generally the look I am striving for. In addition to random stray hairs, I am also on the lookout for something I affectionately call my Magic Chin Hair.

The Magic Chin Hair is a tenacious, wiry black hair that appears intermittently on the underside of my chin, and it is magic because of its ability to grow a centimetre in a 24-hour period. One day I will peer under my chin and there will be nothing, and the next day, the literal next day, there it will be, waving at me in all its glory. If I put a time-lapse camera under my chin, I could maybe watch it bloom like one of those videos showing a rose going from bud to full blossom. Is it silly to ascribe an actual personality to a chin hair? Because for a long while I thought it was just an extrovert, as it always seemed to make its appearance when I had a social event, back when I had social events and didn’t have a mask on every time I was around other people. Fancy Christmas party? Dinner with friends? Social event with my husband’s colleagues? It was inevitable, the Magic Chin Hair would show up, excited to get its mack on, and I, the cruel mistress I am, would unceremoniously pluck it.

I hadn’t seen Magic Chin Hair for a long time, and you may think it’s crazy, but I wondered if it was pandemic-related. No need to get up when there’s no getting down, if you know what I’m saying. But then I was looking closely at my face, as I do, and I noticed something: Magic Chin Hair was there, but is now white.

Is this a thing that is going to happen to ALL my stray facial hairs? Are they all going to turn white? This is LIFE-CHANGING. White chin hairs are far superior to black chin hairs, and I will die on this hill. Don’t get me wrong, I still plucked Magic Chin Hair, white or not I didn’t really want a long hair protruding from my face. It feels like that could be a very slippery slope on the way to looking like Santa or Kenny Rogers.

Sometimes a person I haven’t seen in 25-30 years will post a photo of their child, and that child will look exactly like the person in question, when I last saw them. It’s both heartwarming and unsettling, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I do love social media for that kind of connection; for me it’s all about the updates and photos of kids and pets and food and – when it was appropriate – vacations.

It’s because of social media that I made kind of an error the other day. I was outside the library with Barkley, dropping books into the chute, and a man smiled at me, a man who looked very familiar. It occurred to me that he looked just like the Facebook photos of a man I went to high school with. “Hi!” I said, “Scott, right?” He shook his head and said his name was Dave. “Oh, sorry, you look just like a guy I went to high school with,” I said, and JUST as the words were coming out of my mouth I realized that he was a good many years my junior, and could justifiably be offended by the implication that he and I were teenagers together, when in reality I am probably closer to his mom’s age than to his.

That wasn’t the only awkward interaction I had at the library. The library is about a kilometre from my house, so the 2k loop is a perfect length of walk for Barkley. I generally have a book to pick up or drop off a few times a week, and so we take that route, and I fasten his leash to the bench outside the door while I dash in to pick up a hold. This is a process that takes about ninety seconds, maybe 180 if I stop to pile a few extra books from the “New and Notable” display in my arms. A few weeks ago I was doing just that and as I was leaving, I heard a woman speaking to the librarian at the door, whose job it is to count the patrons coming in and out and ensuring that everyone is sanitizing their hands upon entry and is appropriately masked. The woman in question was talking about a dog, and I heard her say “I sure hope the owner is in here!”

Uh oh. Was this about leaving my dog unattended for less than two minutes? Did Barkley somehow morph into an aggressive barking dog, rather than the sweet, waggy guy he is? I smiled at the lady nervously and said that I thought that was my dog she was talking about, and was he bothering her? “Oh no!” the woman said. “I just…you know how dogs sometimes look like their owners? I was going to look for someone with really long bangs and wild shaggy hair! I would have never guessed it was YOU.”

For the record, my hair that day was in a bun, like it often is. Also for the record, Barkley has since had his spring haircut and I think he lost about ten percent of his body weight.

See? Magic.

Outfit of the Week

Recording the outfit of the week makes me consciously appreciate the clothes that I already own, as I shop my closet. I truly believe we should all feel good in our clothes, and I do love my wardrobe. As well as my chin hair, I anthropomorphize my clothing, thinking that each piece gets excited to be chosen for the day. Putting together a cute outfit gives me a lift every single day, even when I have nowhere to go and nothing to do, I still like feeling cute and put-together.

This week’s outfit features a sweater that I love but don’t wear often as it is very impractical. For one thing: cream. You can be guaranteed that something will be spilled on this by the end of the day. For another thing: those sleeves. I love the way they look but unless I fold them over and roll them up, like we used to do to our jeans back in the eighties, they fall into the dish water or drift dangerously close to the oven element when cooking. It’s so cute though. I know for a fact that the long-sleeve tee was purchased in 2010, and my old jeans and boots complete this outfit.

Pandemic Reading

This book of essays was so original and charming! I didn’t realize until I read the author bio that she is an actress/ comedian/ the lamb in Zootopia. One of the essays has to do with planning a garden, and how she wanted that garden to reflect what is inside her, and also she wanted flowers that her dog would sniff and the flowers were sticky and ended up on her dog’s face, and it was just absolutely sweet and charming, and I felt it in my soul. I loved the way she speaks about herself – “I washed my dear little face” – and I vow to speak that way about myself. Thanks to Swistle for the recommendation (HI SWISTLE).


What an incredible, troubling, hopeful book with so many layers and nuanced characters. This deals with a Barbadian woman, and the generations of women before her, who are living with systemic abuse. If you have ever had the luxury of lying on a tropical beach, and have wondered about the lives of the people who are working to make a living from you lying on a tropical beach, well. This is a debut novel and I look forward to seeing more from this author.

A woman’s marriage is in shambles, they’re too broke to get a divorce, her son is a teen who doesn’t need or want to be around her…so she starts wearing her dog in a baby sling. Seems like a funny concept but was kind of grim and depressing. There were funny parts but mostly it fell quite flat for me.

I hope you all had a lovely long weekend; however you celebrate, I hope there were lovely treats involved! I personally am now about 10% Mini-Eggs. xo

This Is Not An April Fool, I Really Am Cross As Two Sticks

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I have been Quite Cross this week; not Constantly Cross, but Intermittently So. Some of my You’re On My Last Nerve feeling could probably be attributed to hormones and upcoming ladies’ holidays, the looming “third-wave” of Covid cases, the super-slow vaccine rollout that is seeing people get their second shot FOUR MONTHS after their first, and the fact that it was spring break and the most excitement I had to look forward to was cracking open the extra-large bag of Mini-Eggs, but much of it was just General Ridiculousness and Can People Even Do Their Jobs.

On Monday morning I got a call from the orthodontist’s office; I assumed before picking up that it was simply a reminder call for our appointment for my son to pick up his retainer, for which the orthodontist took impressions of his teeth the week previous. Instead of an automated message, it was an actual person, who began explaining to me in great detail that the orthodontist took impressions of my son’s teeth in order to make the retainer that we were to pick up. Yes, yes, do go on. After a few minutes of this, the woman relayed the real reason for the call: the lab had somehow broken the impression and instead of picking up the retainer, my son would have to get impressions all over again. Then, we could pick the retainer up the day after that.

Accidents occur and these things happen, but honestly, can anything be easy and straightforward with this son’s orthodontia? Can it? The answer, of course, is no. From the initial criminal orthodontist to the one that put on brackets that had to be replaced, to finding a new orthodontist, who only happens to work in Calgary every other week, to my son actually breaking brackets, to a global pandemic that slowed his treatment by at least six months, to a twisted tooth from the bracket being on the wrong tooth that was attached to his elastics, to a process that took a solid eight months longer than anticipated. I mean, of course the lab broke his impressions. Of course we have to go to the orthodontic office three times in the space of one week, of course I am running out of ink in my printer printing off Covid consent forms because there is no online option. WHY is there no online option? Why am I printing things out like it’s 2010?

Anyway, we have the retainer, and I celebrated to myself prematurely about being free from the orthodontist office, as my son informed me that we needed another appointment in a month and then one every two months after that. “Every two months…for how long?” I asked, picturing me sitting in the parking lot until he’s an actual adult. He didn’t know. No one knows. Forever, I guess.

My second grumble was with the veterinary office. Barkley has a recurring medication that I refill about once every two months, and the vet has a really great system wherein I call and leave a message, asking for a text when it’s ready. I always get a text within a day or two, and then I wait in the parking lot for them to bring it out to my car (pre-Covid I would just pop in and pick it up). Anyway, eight days had passed since I called and I hadn’t heard a word, so I called the office to speak to someone directly, and after being put on hold, hung up on, and calling back, I finally spoke with a woman who told me that the medication had been sitting there FOR EIGHT DAYS. She told me a text had been sent, I said I hadn’t received it, and in my mind, a Deadlock Had Been Reached. I didn’t really care what happened, I was just going to come and pick up the medication, and I said as much to the woman in a pleasant voice. “No!” she said. “We NEED to find out what happened so it doesn’t happen again! Maybe we can call you!” I said, it’s fine, a text is fine, this has never happened before, it’s a glitch. Then, the woman suggested that the fault was MINE, that I must have deleted the text, because the text had been sent, therefore it must have been delivered to me.

Hold up there, lady. I am not a time-traveller from another era, unfamiliar with this little glowing machine in my hand that pings every once in a while to let me know that there is communication that went from another person to space and back. I don’t even receive that many texts, let alone texts that I would just randomly delete. Also, I could see the text chain from the vet office, with the last text being from January, exactly two months before. The text has not been deleted, I cannot say what happened but it is NOT THAT.

The final Source of My Crossness has to do with a company that has efficiently and reliably delivered floral arrangements and gift baskets for me on many, many occasions over the past decade, including – and this is important – to my parents. I have been always happy with this company, up until a couple of weeks ago, when I ordered flowers for the occasion of my parents’ wedding anniversary. I waited to hear from my mother, and waited, and waited. Finally I asked if she had received anything – no – and then checked my confirmation emails over and over to see if I had erred on the date or address. It would be unbelievably out of character for this to happen, but you never know. I had not erred.

Finally, my mother texted me to say that my parents had gone out to pick up the flowers from the Purolator depot, and thank you, they were lovely. Wait, what? My PARENTS, who are senior citizens, had to go out IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC to pick up their own flowers for which I had PAID A DELIVERY FEE OF FIFTEEN DOLLARS, to be delivered TO THEIR HOME. Let me tell you, I was pretty unhappy with this turn of events. I sent a strongly-worded email to the company TWO WEEKS AGO, and not a word have I had in response.

What if my parents were infirm? What if they had no access to a car? What if they had Covid or any other illness for which people often send flowers? What did I pay a delivery fee for if the flowers were not to be delivered? I am LIVID about this, not just about their shoddy customer service and radio silence, but also, now I have to find a new floral/ gift basket delivery company. SUGGESTIONS WELCOME.

Other, smaller grievances include our customary Spring Gusting Winds, which have been blowing all the needles off of my neighbour’s evergreen tree into our yard, which means that our mudroom is constantly covered with dead evergreen needles which seem to get everywhere: into my boots – discovered only when walking and one dislodges and stabs me in the toe – on Barkley’s fur, and into everyone’s feet any time we walk downstairs, for a painful reminder of Spring. Also, for mysterious reasons, frozen petit peas have been completely unavailable at Superstore, which everyone knows are far superior to those tough, bigger peas and there are rumblings again of a toilet paper shortage – although, apparently in Canada we have our OWN toilet paper manufacturers. We are, apparently, Toilet Paper Self-Sufficient, even if we don’t have enough vaccines, so I guess that’s something. At least we will not have to resort to wet washcloths, which is a plus.

My final grievance is that I painstakingly chopped up Mini-Eggs to stir into homemade vanilla ice cream as a Special Holiday Treat, and after I complained about how chopping Mini-Eggs is a bitch of a job, someone mentioned that I could have used a food processor. WHY WAS I NOT SMART ENOUGH TO THINK OF THAT? Oh, and also, I had a coupon for $6 off a $60 purchase at Co-Op, and when I got to the till I was at $57, and I panicked and bought caramel eggs that were 2 for $3, and later saw that same exact item at Superstore for $0.88, and this has bothered me ENORMOUSLY. Like, that extra $1.24 I spent to get $6 off feels disproportionately wasteful.

Well. That’s enough grievances to last a while. My Sith name today is, apparently, General Grievance. Time to move on with life, and maybe grab a handful of the leftover Mini-Eggs. xo

A Very Eventful Week; Fifty-Four Weeks In

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It has been a Very Eventful Week in the Boyhouse! First of all, it was our wedding anniversary. Just look at this fresh-faced young thing:

Fast forward nineteen years to the day and that fresh-faced young thing was asking her handsome groom to please look at the varicose veins on the back of her calf to see if anything Looked Weird. Keeping the romance alive, people! If anyone has any questions about how to keep those home fires burning, I’m your Huckleberry.

As an aside, longtime readers will remember that I had my extensive (EXTENSIVE) varicose veins stripped, exactly ten years ago, and for most people that is a permanent solution to the problem. I am, apparently, a rare and unique snowflake as I have developed new ones, and the result is that nothing can be done; it’s just me and my varicose veins, together forever. But on the anniversary of my wedding day, I was having weird intermittent pains and my calf was swollen, and I actually, uncharacteristically, consulted Doctor Google and went down a spiral of “do I have a blood clot.” I had two out of four symptoms but zero risk factors, and the advice Doctor Google had was GO TO URGENT CARE IMMEDIATELY DO NOT PASS GO YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. Settle down there, Doctor Google. Going to urgent care for a bit of pain and swelling seems extreme in the best of times, and this is not the best of times – our Covid cases are WAY up, so no thank you. I put on one of the calf compression sleeves I use for running and went to bed, thinking that if I had an elephant leg in the morning I would call my doctor, but anticlimactically, All Was Fine In The Morning.

All Was Fine In The Morning seems like the title for the story of my life.

If you want to REALLY kill the romance on your wedding anniversary, I have some advice: have a baby on that day! Our anniversary has been eclipsed by my older son’s birthday for the past 17 years. (Don’t worry, friends, we do celebrate our anniversary, just not on the day of. The romance is still there, I swear! Varicose veins and all.) Anyway, as Steph said (HI STEPH), everyone in the world has now had a Pandemic Birthday, and now my son has had two. (Her youngest and my oldest share a birthday, so happy happy to them!) His 16th birthday – ten days after The Lockdown – was, in his words, The Worst Birthday Ever, but his 17th was The Best, so I guess the universe has evened things out for him. He had a great day, despite writing a big math exam on it, and, of course, there was cake.

Look at this little bean!

Just to even the excitement out for the whole family, this week my younger son got his braces off! It has been a long 26 months and, to be honest, we have had so many delays that I was not one hundred percent confident that it would actually happen this week. Until he came into the waiting room and told me they were off, I didn’t really believe it would happen. But it did! It did happen! So much happiness and caramel corn awaits!

By the way, if you happen to make that caramel corn, do not blame me if you become hopelessly addicted. Caveat emptor, my friends, caveat emptor.

On the way home from the orthodontist, I suggested that we, in a celebratory manner, throw out all the orthodontic elastics in the bathroom and backpacks, to which my son suggested he have a better idea: “Can I use that lighter you have for birthday candles? I’m going to burn them!” You know, sometimes you think that you are doing a great job preparing your children for adulthood and responsibility, and then they suggest something like setting fire to plastic bags of latex orthodontic elastics. When I said that was not a good idea, no, not even outside, don’t even think about it, he muttered that when Covid is all over, he’s going to burn all his masks, anyway. Given the agonizingly slow rollout of vaccinations in this country, he will likely have left home by that time, and I will have nothing to say about it. Sure! Burn them all.

Outfit of the Week

On the surface, this is just a Nicole Signature Outfit, with yoga tank and leggings, long-sleeved tee, and long sweater, but what you don’t know is that I have had that sweater since 2008. Observe!

Baby Barkley! Look at that little fuzzball. Anyway, that sweater is a longtime favourite, and it’s held up pretty well for thirteen years of wear.

Pandemic Reading

After a month or so of having just a few library books at a time on my table, a whole bunch of holds came in.

Challenge accepted!

After reading this by Swistle (HI SWISTLE), I realized something: the percentage of books I read written by male authors is small, and it is extremely rare that I will read a book ABOUT men, or with a male protagonist. This isn’t a conscious choice, but it is one that I have made my whole life: I have always gravitated towards books by women, about women. There are, of course, exceptions: David Sedaris, for example, is one of my favourites, I have enjoyed everything I have read by Malcolm Gladwell, and I have recently become a fan of Bill Bryson. Graeme Simison’s Rosie books and Peter Mayle’s A Year In Provence are delightful and worthy of many rereads, but in general, I don’t seem to enjoy or choose male-written books, and yes, I am just realizing this now. I have a clear memory of me, in grade one, being in a gifted reading program and LYING about “having that book at home” so that I didn’t have to spend my reading time with a book featuring boys going to space. I got busted for that lie, by the way, when my mother went to parents’ night at the school.

Anyway! Books I read this week:

Wow. Wow! What an incredible book; it is wrenching and heartbreaking and hopeful and beautiful. Yaa Gyasi is such a gifted writer, I am looking forward to reading Homegoing, and any future novels she might have. This book has so many levels. I read a lot (obviously) and rare is the book that consumes me like this, that makes me slow down my reading, rereading pages to absorb every tiny detail. So incredible, what a book. So full of meaning, so moving, so transporting.

HOWEVER, friends, this book is not for everyone! There are some major trigger warnings here: themes of addiction, depression, death, suicide.

We are the authors of our own stories, and each choice we make in life has repercussions of all sorts, which is something I think about a lot. We can regret things and grow from them. This is the premise of this book, that life is full of infinite possibilities. It’s very sweet, with a great message, if predictable. There was a LOT of Thoreau-worship in it, which dimmed it for me, but overall I liked it.

God, Thoreau. I cannot with that guy. I cannot see a quote from him without thinking about how he was living deliberately in the woods and all the while his mother was bringing him food and doing his laundry. It infuriates me when I see men celebrated like that, when in fact none of it would be possible without women. Take, for example, Tolstoy. I cannot read Tolstoy without thinking of Sophia Tolstoy painstakingly copying out all his books by hand, by candlelight, all the while raising his 13 children. I mean, have you ever read War and Peace? It’s a MONSTER of a book and she rewrote and edited it – BY HAND, YOU GUYS, BY HAND – seven times. The list of women supporting male writers and their Creative Genius is endless: Wordsworth, Dostoyevsky, Eliot, Dr. Seuss, are some examples. Oh, OH! And Louisa May Alcott, who was a Creative Genius herself, was supporting her whole family because her father was a good friend of Thoreau’s, and subscribed to the same Transcendentalist philosophy, and also ruined their family financially. She was not only writing amazing works but also supporting the family as a seamstress, while her father, who was a useless piece of shit, was off Thinking Great Philosophical Thoughts and forcing the family to Live Deliberately and impoverished.

The whole thing makes me so mad I can barely breathe; as it is I am doing ujjayi breaths just writing this. Anyway, The Midnight Library was good, but it would have been better without all the Thoreau quotes and worship, is what I’m saying. Also, trigger warning for the overlying suicide theme.

I know very little about Colombia, its history and politics. This was a shocking, eye-opening novel based on the author’s life experience. Kidnapping, for example, was extremely commonplace in the time of guerrillas and narcos, pre-2005. It’s a fast-moving, wrenching, and quite sad read.

Ultimately a testament to the importance of having support and witnesses to life, and the power of connection, I however found this to be mostly sad and frustrating to read.

And it’s spring break this week which means…not much. A regular week with less rushing, I guess! I will enjoy it, and I hope you do too. xo

Costco, Then and Now; Fifty-Three Weeks In

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One of the best things about having a blog is being able to look back to see what was happening at any given month in the past; I always think in the moment that I’ll remember something forever, and then I’ll find myself wondering if that something happened in 2018 or 2017, only to find out it was 2012. To the archives! I’m finding this to be helpful during The Pandemic because time has lost all meaning, and I’ll think something just happened and then I’ll realize that event was in July. Similarly, things that seem years away just happened in December. I can’t tell if this time warp feeling is strictly Pandemic Related or if this is a Natural Result of Getting Older.

Last week I was at Costco; I go there every two to three weeks, right after my weekly shop at Superstore. Because of the restrictions with regards to numbers – stores are currently required to have no more than 15% capacity according to fire codes – I go right at opening. When it’s a Double Shop day – Costco AND Superstore – I aim to be at Superstore for opening at eight, and then zip over to Costco for opening at nine. It feels like I’m in some kind of race to the finish when I do this but there are many benefits: a) everything is DONE and generally put away by eleven, b) there are almost never any errant carts left in random places in the Costco parking lot so early in the day, thus decreasing my impotent cart-rage to almost zero.

While I was at Costco, I couldn’t help but compare and contrast my experience with Costco Trips One Year Ago. It feels like a weird fever dream: lining up in the parking lot for an hour just to get into the store, not unlike a ride for Disney World but much less fun, whole categories of items completely unavailable, the feeling of fear and panic everywhere, people just getting used to the whole social distancing concept and mask wearing. The simple act of getting groceries had turned into a nightmarish, harrowing event that would leave me drained and exhausted for the whole day.

Meanwhile, last week I sauntered through the aisles with my giant cart, humming to myself, noticing things like the availability of every kind of flour you can imagine, a shelf full of the giant boxes of yeast for $5, and while I didn’t walk through the paper product aisle, I assume that there was as much toilet paper and paper towel as anyone could need. I wondered idly if the people who left Costco a year ago with whole carts full of toilet paper are still using their supply. The one thing that was on my list but unavailable was, strangely, Worcestershire sauce. I’m guessing this is not a pandemic thing.

Everything is just so much better. Grocery staff seem like they are no longer stretched to the limit, trying to cope with ever-changing rules and stressed-out customers. With the ubiquity of hand sanitizer, I actually feel LESS appalled at the thought of touching things in stores than I ever have. I have always been a person who uses the bottom of my shirt to open door knobs, and now I feel like there are LESS germs on public surfaces due to our constant sanitization; everywhere you look people are squirting sanitizer in their hands from all available dispensers. People are politely giving distance to other shoppers, and I haven’t had to line up outside the store since last spring. Costco does not allow anyone in the store without a mask on, but still I was pleased to see all masks worn properly. I was thinking just as I left I didn’t see one nose today! but alas, I thought too soon. As I was heading for the door a man came in with a mask below his nose – why is it always older white men…oh wait, I know why – and I looked him straight in the eye. I smiled – smized – and gestured to my own mask, miming pulling it up. And you know what? HE PULLED UP HIS MASK. IT WORKED. If I had known that a smize and a gesture might actually change someone’s behaviour I would have tried it months ago.

Outfit of the Week

Full disclosure: this was not my planned OOTW, but I was having a really good hair day and felt like the moment needed to be captured.

This is a Nicole Signature Outfit; yoga pants and tank, layered with a long-sleeve tee and a long drapey sweater. This sweater is quite light, a nod to the lovely mild weather we have been having.

Hair close-up! In these times, so few can witness our good hair days. Thank god for the internet and the ability to selfie.

Pandemic Reading

Yes, I know it’s March, but library holds come in when library holds come in, we cannot control them, serenity now. In any case this was a delightfully sweet, silly, and satisfying read, not unlike watching a holiday Hallmark movie.

Is it weird to put this on a blog? Maybe. This was a fascinating book about paying attention, society, and connection.

This page spoke to me – bringing humanity to the people around us. Rather than viewing others as an inconvenience, viewing people as actual people, with lives and hopes and dreams and realities that we are unaware of.

“…firecrackers setting off other firecrackers in a very small room that soon gets filled with smoke. Our aimless and desperate expressions on these platforms don’t do much for us, but they are hugely lucrative for advertisers…” – this put into words uneasy feelings I have been having about social media and outrage.

Such a perfect way to say that we need to be happy and thankful for the things we have.

Speaking of thankful, I was able to run this week and it was glorious. The sunrises have continued to be beautiful, and we have a birthday and anniversary celebration coming up this week. Enjoy your week, my friends. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Cleaning Items That Are The Real Heroes Of The Pandemic Edition

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I think we can all agree that household chores have taken on new importance during this pandemic. I like to have a clean and tidy home and that has been amplified by being at home all the time.

It’s interesting to me, how different we all are in terms of cleaning preferences: not just products, but also methods. My mom, for example, was a Spring Cleaning kind of person, who would literally clean the house from top to bottom over a 24-hour period, not just in spring but several times a year. She kept a very clean house, and there was always one day a week that was Cleaning Day. I am more of a Short Bursts of Energy kind of person, wherein I like to do one or two things each day, rather than set aside a whole day or weekend.

When I was first married, my mother-in-law told me that HER mother-in-law used to wash the walls monthly. Every single month, she would take everything off the walls, move the furniture, and wash them. My mother-in-law said, in a very well meaning way, “That’s just not necessary! Every month. Once every three to four months is plenty!” I remember smiling and nodding and thinking every three to four months? To this day, I think I’ve washed the walls a) when we’ve repainted, and not always then, and b) when we were first in lockdown and I was bored. I spot-wash the walls when they look grubby but other than that? No.

In general I spend between 10 and 30 minutes a day doing household chores, depending on the day and not including the kitchen. The kitchen, really, is its own entity. I spend so much time cooking and preparing food, and I am a clean-as-you-go kind of person, and so much more time is spent doing dishes and wiping down countertops. If I add that time up, I will become depressed, so I am not going to do that.

One thing I will NOT do as an adult is dry dishes. That was one of my chores as a child and to this day I cannot stand it. If no one is home to dry them, I pile everything into the drying rack and allow them to air dry; the only exception is if I have wine glasses or the coffee pot in the drying rack and I am trying to fit something heavy in there, like pots and pans. I will not risk the life of my coffee pot, and hence the life of my family, and so I will dry it with a feeling of being under extreme duress.

Anyway, 10-30 minutes a day of small things adds up, especially because my house is not very big and I am very fortunate to live with three pretty neat and tidy guys. They do the post-dinner cleanup on weekends, the boys keep their rooms neat and clean, and they are all good at putting dishes away and emptying the dishwasher and not doing gross boy things like peeing on the toilet seat. Don’t get me wrong; I am not sure at what point anyone would actually wash the dishes in the sink without being asked specifically, and no one has EVER cleaned the bathroom without specific instructions, or emptied the bathroom wastepaper basket, and there is constantly an empty juice container squished and left on the kitchen island when the recycling bin is literally fifteen steps away and everyone passes it every time they go downstairs, not that I’m bitter. In general, my cleaning time is mostly spent in the bathroom and also dealing with the floor; at this time of year it is generally covered in paw prints.

This month’s Favourite Things was inspired by Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) and her Chores Chat, where I discovered I am LITERALLY fascinated by other people’s housework methodologies and cleaning products.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Cleaning Items That Are The Real Heroes Of The Pandemic Edition

Roomba

I cannot say enough about my Roomba. I actually have two Roombas; one on the main floor and one downstairs. I am not in the least exaggerating when I say that getting a Roomba was Life Changing. I mean, I can go about my day while a robot cleans my floors, what could possibly be better than that, cleaning-wise? A ROBOT IS CLEANING MY FLOORS.

Go, Roomba, go! I believe in you!

White Vinegar

I am going to confess something here: I am a little bit of a hippie when it comes to cleaning products. While we do have some chemical products – for example, toilet bowl cleaners, I am not a monster – I like to be as natural as possible. I know, it’s weird to say that during a pandemic, but here we are.

I love white vinegar and use it diluted for washing mirrors, windows, glass shower doors, and the hardwood floors. As a result, my house often smells like a pickle factory, but hey, it works. It’s a potpourri, really: vinegar, delicious baking, and elderly dog. Maybe I should market it: Nicole’s Home Fragrance.

I buy the STORE BRAND because, Scottish.

Swedish Dish Cloths

Another confession: I was almost thirty when I realized that people use paper towels for cleaning. I honest to god thought that those commercials showing people using paper towels to clean up spills were just commercials; I didn’t know anyone who used them that way. I know! I know. I was brought up in a house in which spills – and everything else – were cleaned up using rags that were kept under the kitchen sink, and so my house has rags kept under the kitchen sink; rags, by the way, that I have made out of old receiving blankets, pajamas, and towels. Between that and the vinegar I’m practically Ma Ingalls.

However, someone had mentioned Swedish dish cloths to me, which are like a reusable paper towel. I ordered some and yes, I keep them under the sink. They are pretty and cute, and they work great for cleaning the sink and stovetop, and buffing fingerprints off the stainless steel appliances. I still mostly use rags for everything else though.

My Mother-in-Law’s Dish Cloths

My mother-in-law knits these dish cloths and is extremely generous with them. She can whip off one in an hour or less, and she has literal drawers full of them, so I help myself whenever I visit. As a result, this is in my hall cupboard:

These are my EXTRAS, for when my current kitchen stash wear out and become, in the Circle of Life, under-the-sink rags. I have enough to last me until I’m in the Home. Or dead. My great-grandchildren will be divvying them up amongst themselves and wondering why Great Grandma had so many dish cloths. Anyway, these are great for washing dishes – which I spend an alarming amount of time doing – and also wiping down the kitchen countertops – ditto.

Method Cleaning Products

These hippie products smell good and work well. I use the blue one for the bathroom sink and toilet, the granite cleaner mostly for the bathroom granite but sometimes for the kitchen when I’m feeling fancy, and the antibacterial one for the kitchen sink.

Scrubbing Bubbles

I quick-clean the bathroom every other day with vinegar and Method, but once a week I give it a thorough cleaning: scrubbing the shower tiles and floor. We have two bathrooms in the house and the main floor one is heavily utilized. Twenty-eight showers a week – at minimum – means that the main floor shower gets quite a soap scum and hard water buildup that really, no amount of diluted vinegar and hippie cleaning products are going to touch. I love Scrubbing Bubbles for that purpose; this is the only bathroom cleaner whose smell I can stand. It’s fresh and clean smelling, and it really works.

Plus, I like to imagine a the bubbles actually looking like that, in a world we cannot see, scrubbing away happily.

Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner

Anyone that has stainless steel appliances knows the bane of their existence, fingerprints and smudges. My mom told me about this and WOW, does it ever work. I have tried every hippie method known to man – coconut oil, vinegar, praying to the cleaning gods – and nothing has worked like this.

Caveat: be careful when spraying it on the appliances, because if you get it on the floor it is VERY slippery. Be warned! Also, admire my shiny fridge!

Feel free to share your favourite cleaning hacks, products, and methods. Or, don’t! If cleaning is not your jam, don’t worry, next week we will delve into another favourite topic: Costco. Until then, my friends! xo

A Year of Wonders; Fifty-Two Weeks In

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I am absolutely a person who thrives on routine and ritual, and exactly one year ago my daily routines and rituals, like everyone else’s, were disrupted and destroyed. After a few weeks of muddling about, I created new routines and rituals that I have kept to this day. I wake very early in the morning, the only time the house is quiet and mine alone, I drink some coffee and read and write for half an hour, and then I select a poem to read. I read my poem and do my yoga practice, and that is how I start my day.

The very first poem I read when I began this ritual was this one, by Mary Oliver.

I read that poem and then, as I practiced, I watched the sky change from pitch black to inky blue, lightening into morning. This past week, pre-time change*, seeing that same change of darkness opening into morning as I do my yoga practice, reminds me more than anything else of last March. It is as if watching the sky change at that exact time is now imprinted on my soul and forever will be, and will always remind me of the time when the world changed.

When I think about March 2020, I remember it as a time of cold and darkness. I remember the feeling of disbelief, fear, panic, and, above all, despair. I remember lining up in the cold grey parking lot to get groceries, I remember the apocalyptically-empty shelves at the grocery store, I remember trying to manage the household with suddenly everyone at home all the time. If anyone had told me then that the pandemic would last as long as it has lasted, with time yet to go, I would have simply curled into a ball and cried, I would have not been able to go on.

But here we are! Look at what we have done! We have made it a year, and we can keep going! We have been running our houses and caring for our families and working and supervising our children’s education all under the strangest and most stressful of circumstances, and WE ARE HERE. Things may be far from ideal, mistakes have been made, sometimes we feel like we are failing, but WE ARE HERE. I know so many people who have been knocked down, over and over, and have dusted themselves off and gotten back up; I know people who have switched careers, who have adapted to and thrived in new circumstances, who are homeschooling their children, who are all doing and learning new things, and WE ARE HERE. I am so proud of all of us and everything we have accomplished.

After our second lockdown, in December, I fretted to my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) about all the new measures, and what if all these measures didn’t work? She said, soothingly, that we can just do what we can do, the rest is out of our control. So true. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it is that life is like the Serenity Prayer: we need to accept the things we cannot change, have courage to change the things we can, and have wisdom to know the difference. I am not a front-line worker, I do not provide an essential service, I am not a scientist working on vaccines. All I can do is wear my mask, distance from people, and avoid travel and gatherings. I am a teeny tiny cog in the giant wheel of life, and yet collectively, collectively we are all actually making a difference. My efforts are small in the singular, but put together with all of YOUR efforts, they are significant.

We have all just tried to figure things out. Last spring, I had many well-meaning friends share what probably helped them get through the days, but were soul-crushing to me: friends who gave suggestions about disinfecting my groceries, for example, or friends who suggested digging out my flower gardens to plant vegetables for anticipated food shortages. Those suggestions, well-meant as they were, were not good for my mental state. At the time, thinking ahead more than one day at a time, or one week at a time, propelled me into a sadness spiral. Even now, if I think about the economic and financial ruin, whole industries devastated – restaurants, travel – not to mention the loss of so many lives, well. I cannot think about it. I have to keep myself going and so I keep my focus on the day to day. I don’t read the news anymore, I have scaled back hard on social media, and I remind myself that there is nothing wrong with being in the now. In fact, the pandemic has made me more mindful about living in the present; I think to the week ahead and no more, not really.

I do imagine that at some point in the future, I will be able to travel again, and I hope I will never take that for granted. In the future, I hope that I will be always grateful to share a meal with friends or hug someone. Right now I am grateful every single day for the schools, every day that the kids are at school is a boon. I hope that I never take any of those things for granted, for the rest of my life.

My initial reaction to March 2020 is, as I say, the feeling of cold and dark, but as I think of it more, I remember some really wonderful things. I remember the massive amounts of sidewalk chalk art as I walked through the neighbourhood. I remember people putting signs in their windows for children to look at. I remember how it felt when the sun came out, and the snow started to melt, and how we were all pulling together to support each other. It felt like spring, it felt like hope.

*Time change, can you believe we are still doing this? I mean, have we not been through enough?

Outfit of the Week

I have walked every single day of this pandemic, regardless of weather, and so it seems fitting that this week’s outfit is a walking one.

It’s continued to be mild and so last week’s light puffy coat is making an appearance, along with boots, and my very favourite bum warmer from My Cozy Buns.

Here’s what’s under all the outerwear (bonus Barkley photo): a decade-old sweater from Jacob that I still love, yoga tights, and the longest warm socks you have ever seen. Comfortable and warm, and perfect for walking and also lounging.

Pandemic Reading

No one can accuse me of not reading a wide variety of genres this week.

First of all, a shout-out to my librarian cousin Karen (HI KAREN), who sent me this book with the request that I drop it off in a little free library after I finished; she had put a bookmark with a sweet note in it as well, which made me want to put little notes in every LFL book.

Isn’t that sweet? Anyway, about the book: it is a compelling, uncomfortable, well-written, unsettling book that is about a fictional dystopian world of injustice and inequality, that does not actually feel very fictional. It leaves the reader with a tiny glimmer of hope.

I really love Malcolm Gladwell and this is probably my favourite of his books. It was a reread for me but well worth it. It’s all about success and the myth of meritocracies, and how we all – whether we know or acknowledge it – are products of our environment, legacies, and lucky breaks.

I don’t always read historical fiction…but when I do I like it to be juicy and scandalous. HOO BOY. This was juicy. The woman in question was, like Wallis, an American; in fact, she was the twin sister of Gloria Vanderbilt the senior. She was also married to a British peer who knew and kind of sanctioned the whole affair. It’s QUITE the story.

I decided to read this on the exact anniversary of the lockdown, which for us was Saturday. I had read this book when it first came out, probably twenty years ago, for a book club. Reader alert: it’s a little gross. I mean, it deals with the bubonic plague, and there are descriptions about the bubonic plague, so be warned. Anyway, it’s a fictional account of a true story about a village in England that quarantined itself during the Great Plague of London in 1665-66. It’s an interesting read about how people respond in a crisis not that we would know anything about that, would we??? The ending is great, some of the book drags for me, but overall decent.


I’m planning to restart my running routine after a winter hiatus in the next week or two, so I picked up this book that I received as a Christmas gift. It reads like a blog, probably because it was based on a blog. The author is the head instructor at Peloton, and her positive energy and inspiring words shine through. I don’t think there are any great or new revelations here, but it’s a good manual for runners or people interested in becoming runners.

And Sunday was Pi Day! Did you celebrate? I personally loathe pie, but I love my guys, and so she’s my cherry pie.

Have a great week, friends, stay strong. xo